This document deals with installing StarOffice 3.1. The current version
of StarOffice is 5.1. Version 5.1 is considerably easier to install and less
buggy than version 3.1. In fact, in my opinion there is no need for a HOWTO
for version 5.1, since StarDivision has written a fairly complete
installation guide. The StarOffice mini-HOWTO was useful while it lasted,
but it is now being archived only for the few who still wish to install
StarOffice 3.1. For information about StarOffice 5.1, check StarDivision's site at http://www.stardivision.com.

The StarOffice Office Suite is a collection of office tools for Linux,
written in C using the Motif toolkit.

StarOffice includes:

StarWriter, a word processor

StarCalc, a spreadsheet

StarImage, an image editor

StarDraw, a draw program similar to Corel DRAW

StarChart, a chart-making program

StarMath, a math editor

The StarOffice Office Suite for Linux is free for non-commercial use.
Commercial use requires a license. The cost for a commercial license
seperate from Caldera's OpenLinux system is currently undecided.

StarOffice is written using the commercial Motif 2.0 GUI
toolkit. The dynamically linked version will *not* work with Motif
1.2/LessTif.

The static version (with Motif 2.0 linked in) will work regardless
of whether or not you have Motif. However, performance drops.

I run StarOffice on a Pentium 100 with 48 megs RAM,
running Redhat 4.1 and Motif 2.0. Dynamically linked
StarOffice takes about a minute to load. However, it is noticable
that, once it loads up, StarOffice dynamically linked takes up
much less resources than the static version.

StarOffice 3.1 *will* work on Libc 5.3.x. Unfortunately, the setup
program requires 5.4.4 or higher. If you have libc 5.3.x, you might
be able to get around this by acquiring a copy of libc 5.4.4+ and
adding it to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before executing the
setup script. I haven't tried this, however, so you're on your own.

If you attempt to run the setup script on a libc older than 5.4.4,
you will get the following error message:

line 1: Syntax error at token 'I' expected declarator;
i.e. File ...

To upgrade your libc, FTP to sunsite.unc.edu and look in the directory /pub/Linux/GCC for the
file libc-5.4.33.bin.tar.gz (or whatever the latest libc is). Extract
the contents of this file in a temporary directory. A new lib/ directory will
be created. Su to root and copy the file libc.so.5.4.33 from this
directory to your /lib directory. Now, make the symlink from
libc.so.5 to libc.5.4.33 with the command:

...I want only to add that I could install (like you suggested) StarWriter in
a redhat 4.2 system which has a libc5.3, without doing the upgrade.

The exact steps are:

1. get a libc.so.5.4.x. If you have a redhat rpm package (as the one you
find in the contrib directory), you can extract the library by going in a
scratch directory and doing:
rpm2cpio libc.so.5.4.x-y.rpm | cpio --extract --make-directories
The library will appear in ./lib subdirectory

After downloading StarOffice, su or login as root and place the archives in
/usr/local/. Change directory to /usr/local/ and extract
the files. An example command to decompress a gzipped tar file would be:

tar -xzvf filename.tar

Older systems may require you first use the gzip -d command to unzip
the file, then use the tar -xvf command to untar it.

The files will extract to their locations within the newly created
usr/local/StarOffice-3.1 tree.

After you have extracted the StarOffice files as root, you will need to login
with your userid. Change directory to /usr/local/StarOffice-3.1 and
execute the setup program. This program will install non-shared
files and symlinks needed for each individual user. The standard installation
is recommended. There *could* be problems if you do not accept the default
installation path.

StarOffice makes use of environment variables. The files .sd.sh
(formatted for the Bourne Shell) and .sd.csh (formatted for the
C Shell) provide the environment variable settings for StarOffice. These
files are located in your home directory.

If you use bash, edit your .bashrc and add the line:

source /.sd.sh

After doing this, restart bash to bring the environment variables
into effect.

If you use a different shell, consult that shell's man page for information
on sourcing a file.

" I found a bug in the setup script for StarOffice that came with my
Caldera COL standard release. It produces // in a path where there should
only be one /. To fix it, remove the first slash from this line:

The .sd.sh and .sd.csh files set the LANG variable. This
causes problems with perl and man. Man will give the error message

" Failed to open the message catalog man on the path
NLSPATH="

Perl will give the error message

" warning: setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "")..."

The .sd.sh file contains a line that sets LANG=us and another that
exports a bunch of variables, including LANG. Remove the LANG=us line and
remove LANG from the list of variables, and this will be fixed.

In the .sd.csh file (which is formatted for the c shell), you need
to remove the line that says "setenv LANG us".

1. Instead of sourcing the .sd.sh (or .sd.csh) file in my .bash_profile
script, I instead copied the .sd.sh script, renamed it to swriter and
copied it to /usr/local/bin. I then modified it by adding a:

#! /bin/bash

at the start of the script and a:

exec swriter3 $*

at the end of the script. Now all I have to do is run swriter and it
automatically sets up the appropriate environment variables and then runs
StarWriter. Saves having those environment variables pollute other
applications/environments.

2. I noticed that for a lot of people, StarOffice takes quite a while to
load (upwards of 60 seconds). The consensus on usenet was that a large
chunk of this time was due to the symbol relocations that the dynamic linker
has to do. ie, for each new symbol the dynamic linker has to locate the
appropriate library. StarOffice dynamically links against quite a few
libraries so the dynamic linker spends quite a bit of time searching through
lots of libraries.

There is a solution to this. I run StarOffice in a chroot'd jail. In the
jail, I just put the binaries and libraries that StarOffice uses (all the
libs out of /usr/X11R6/lib, libc/libm and libg++/libstdc++). StarWriter
takes approximately 15 seconds to come up on my P133/32MB. This is due to
the fact that the only libraries present are the ones needed by StarOffice
and hence the dynamic linker spends proportionately less time searching
through all the libraries on the system (ie, it doesn't search through all
the useless libs in /usr/lib etc looking to resolve symbols).

More information on StarOffice for Linux is available directly from
StarDivision. StarDivision maintains a website at http://www.stardivision.com

StarDivision runs a news server with support and user groups related to
StarOffice for linux. These newsgroups are the best place to find up-to-date
information on StarOffice and to ask for help. Using a newsreader, connect to
news://starnews.stardivision.com or follow the support link on the StarDivision homepage.

If you can contribute any additional information for this mini-HOWTO, please
contact me via internet e-mail. My address is located at the top of this
document. You may also wish to take a look at my web page, located at
http://tarp.worldserve.net/ or http://tarp.linuxos.org/

Redistribution of this document in electronic form is permitted under the
condition that the document remains unchanged. If you wish to include this
document in a CD-ROM or book, please obtain permission from me beforehand
(I prefer requests to be sent via e-mail).

The author claims no responsibility in anything that may occur directly or
indirectly as a result of using this document. The author is not an employee
of StarDivision, GmbH or Caldera, Inc.